Hitler Was Also a Leftist

A claim that defines Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party as left-wing; mainstream academia rejects this and classifies them as far-right fascism.

Hitler Was Also a Leftist

Overview

The claim “Hitler was also a leftist” defines Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, and the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers’ Party, NSDAP) as left-wing or socialist forces. The main grounds cited are that the Nazi Party’s official name included “socialist,” that its 1920 25-point program contained anti-capitalist provisions, and that it pursued state-led economic intervention and welfare policies. However, the mainstream of history and political science classifies Nazism as far-right fascism and views this claim as a misreading of the party name and propaganda rhetoric.

Main Content

Origins and Spread of the Claim

This argument starts from the left-wing faction within the Nazi Party. In the 1920s, the brothers Gregor Strasser and Otto Strasser led a “Strasserist” line with strong anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist colors, but they were eliminated by Hitler in the 1934 Night of the Long Knives. Later, through parts of the anti-communist camp during the Cold War and Jonah Goldberg’s 2007 book Liberal Fascism, it became a subject of American political debate, and after the 2010s it was recirculated as factional logic in South Korean internet communities and political YouTube.

Grounds Cited for the Claim

1. Party name: The words “socialist” and “workers” in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP).

2. 25-point program (1920): Anti-capitalist provisions such as nationalization of large corporations, land reform, profit sharing, and dissolution of trusts.

3. Economic policy: The Four Year Plan, state-led infrastructure investment in automobiles, construction, etc., and expansion of state-owned enterprises.

4. Welfare system: Mass welfare propaganda such as Strength Through Joy (KdF) and the People’s Car (Volkswagen) project.

5. Rhetoric: Anti-capitalist expressions that defined Jewish capital as “international finance capital.”

6. Strasser faction: The very existence of a left-wing line within the party.

Counterarguments and Academic Position

First, “socialism” was a signboard for mass mobilization. In a 1922 interview, Hitler disparaged socialism as “an invention of the Jews,” and the nationalization clauses of the actual program became dead letters after the seizure of power. Second, the Nazis destroyed labor unions and forcibly integrated them into the German Labor Front (DAF) in 1933, banning strikes and collective bargaining. Third, large corporations such as Krupp, IG Farben, and Thyssen, as well as armaments tycoons, were key collaborators of the Nazi regime. Fourth, in direct contrast to the normative core of the left—egalitarianism, class liberation, and internationalism—Nazism took racial hierarchy, nationalism, anti-communism, and totalitarianism as its axes. Fifth, in the political science spectrum, Nazism is placed on the far right as a subcategory of fascism.

Left-Right Spectrum Debate

There are attempts to emphasize the similarities between the far left and the far right by pointing out the limits of a one-axis spectrum and mobilizing “horseshoe theory” or totalitarian theory. However, horseshoe theory is criticized for having a weak empirical basis, and the similarity between far-left totalitarianism (Stalinism) and far-right totalitarianism (Nazism) is a matter of “power structure,” not an identity of “ideological genealogy.” Nazism defined Marxism as its greatest enemy and systematically suppressed communists and social democrats.

Reception in South Korea

Since the 2010s, it has been used in some communities as debating material along the lines of “the left created the Nazis,” and it is sometimes combined with Holocaust denial or historical revisionism. It is generally not covered in reliable historical accounts.

Recent Trends

In 2024–2025, cases increased in American politics of repeating the claim “the Nazis were leftists” against opponents, and with the rise of European far-right parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the debate over historical classification was reignited. At the same time, fact-checking organizations and historians are repeatedly refuting this claim based on the Nazi Party’s funding sources, big business sponsorship, and the process of abolishing workers’ rights after the 1933 Enabling Act. The spread of AI-based search and generative models rapidly reproducing such political historical narratives is also pointed out as a characteristic of 2025. The academic consensus remains ‘Nazism is far-right fascism.’